They look just like us, but they harbor a deep, dark secret. They are part human, part machine. Strangest of all, they aren't aliens.

They are a segment of the population whose lives are being improved through the work of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Dr. Frank Moss, the lab's director and a professor of media arts, spoke at Cape Cod Community College Nov. 14, about this segment of the population that he referred to as "the last 10 percent," explaining that "the next 10 percent" is the usual target of marketers and inventers.

That is, if 60 percent of homes in the US have computers, the usual goal is to get them into the homes of the next 10 percent. The last ten percent, Moss explained, are the disabled, the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised. They are the targets of the Media Lab's latest "cool" technology.

MIT's Media Lab, started about 25 years ago, has a history of developing cutting-edge technologies such as digital music, holography, advanced robotics, wearable computers and more. It is sponsored by some 80 national and international companies. The culture encourages cross-discipline creativity and non-linear thinking.

"The deep impact of digital technology on people lies just ahead," Moss said. "New relationships between academia and industry transform the motivation for these developments." This is an area in which industry can be more effective than government, he said.

Society as a whole is being transformed, Moss said. Increases in personal productivity that appeared in the 80s and 90s have given way to the digital lifestyle we enjoy today, and this in turn will lead to technology designed to solve more "people" problems.

Advances in biology, physiology and nanotechnology will blur the differences between the real world, the virtual world and the physical human world, Moss believes. In the real world we now have a pervasive nervous system -- cell phones and Global Positioning Systems, for example.

In the virtual world we are seeing the emergence of a 3-D Internet, and physiology is developing new models for body, brain and behavior, leading to more intimate interfaces between physiology and technology. The brain is an obvious target for much of the research.

Moss used the example of John Hockenberry, a Media Lab Distinguished Fellow and well-known journalist, lost the use of his legs in an auto accident at the age of 17 and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Soon afterward, friends asked him if he was considering having his useless legs amputated, or even suicide. According to Moss, Hockenberry said this never entered his mind; he was more concerned with adapting to his new situation. This indomitable spirit is typical of many disabled people and one of the driving forces for the research.

Moss described current research areas. He mentioned Rosalind Picard, who is investigating how to make computers sense what we feel. Toward that end, she developed a system of mapping a group of facial landmarks that are readable using machine vision. The relationship between the distances between the landmarks, generated by facial expressions, allows the computer to determine whether a person is happy, angry, puzzled, depressed.

Another research area addresses autism. The Media Lab developed a hat-cam and a self-cam that autistic patients use to observe their own facial expressions as well as those of others to let them know how others feel and how their expressions affect those around them. This is currently being tested at an autism clinic in Providence. A similar device is being tested by Pepsico, a Media Lab sponsor, for use in their Frito-Lay taste panels.

Moss also mentioned Hugh Herr, a researcher who lost both lower legs in an ice climbing accident. Herr did not want to merely replace his legs; he wanted to improve them. He studied normal motion to create real-time computer models of the knee and ankle, and he now uses knees, legs and ankles that are controlled by impulses from his remaining muscles.

The goal is to eventually establish control directly from the brain. The obvious application would be to help amputees returning from a war zone to resume as normal a life as possible.

Moss said that the lab is also exploring relationships between music, the mind and health. It may be that music is the next wave in medicine. Prescriptions could be written for Rossini overtures or Haydn string quartets.

Hyperscore is a hardware/software system that allows patients with cerebral palsy to compose, conduct and play music using only head motions. Software translates these movements into pitch, duration, intensity and tonal color and provides western harmonies, allowing the composer to conduct and perform his composition.

"Advances like these will forever alter the notions of abilities and disabilities," Moss said. "The deeper relationship that is developing between people and technology is about to change what it means to be human. The challenge is to make it accessible and affordable for everyone."